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cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:

I have something worse than an undesirable earworm. The past day or so my brain keeps trying unsuccessfully to fit the word chupacabra to the tune of "Hakuna Matata". Brain, please stop.

Boosted by aredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart"):
mjd@mathstodon.xyz ("Mark Dominus") wrote:

“Isn’t it striking how many illustrations of a burning planet we see, and how few realistic images of just and sustainable futures we might be working towards?”

https://buttondown.com/muledesign/archive/dodging-evitable-futures-together/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
Hex@kolektiva.social ("hex") wrote:

I keep seeing the "cars replaced horses" thing related to "AI."

People keep comparing "AI" to cars (positively) without thinking about the fact that cars were forced on people (AAA bought up and destroyed tram lines, there were massive protests, etc), and are the primary driver of climate change that is currently on track to make complex human society impossible. Meanwhile, cities that weren't destroyed for cars, or that have reversed most of the damage, are some of the most desirable places to live.

Maybe we could take the car analogy as a warning. Maybe it could be a reminder to think about how forcing technology on people against their will can reshape society in a profoundly negative way.

The answer for cities has been to right-size transit. Eliminate cars wherever possible, maintain emergency vehicles and mobility aids, and find more efficient alternatives (bikes, trams, metros, and trains) where possible. I feel as though we can extrapolate from the metaphor.

We do not have to repeat the mistake of reshaping society around a single, oversimplified, solution in order to benefit a tiny minority. Perhaps we can actually choose the right technologies based on use cases, rather than hype or dogma.

Cars didn't replace horses. Cars replaced walkable cities, tram lines and mass transit, and children playing in the streets.

"Cars replaced horses" to the benefit of a small group of elite men, at tremendous cost to literally everyone else. When people say, "AI is the new 'cars replacing horses'" they are saying something very specific about their privilege and intentions.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
mos_8502@studio8502.ca ("mos_8502 :verified: 🇨🇦") wrote:

Code slow and build things.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net ("Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:") wrote:

My timeline is attracting too much doom and negativity. Can you point me to some folks to follow that DO things like implementing solutions with a smile instead of those that complain and are getting lost in problems, attacking any solution? I need more #IoK — The Internet of Kindness. Thank you for sharing! (Feel free to send as DM, to avoid the nay-sayers and reply-guys jumping on another sea-lioning opportunity)

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Why are old GOP politicians fussing about "T levels" so much?

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/07/19/a-beautiful-response-by-talarico/

Boosted by aredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart"):
aburtch@shakedown.social wrote:

#Trans

brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof:​ :Nonbinary: -> EMF 2026") wrote:

Anyway have some crow sound effects

Attachments:

• audio: Crow caws with a snare drum background.

brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof:​ :Nonbinary: -> EMF 2026") wrote:

Takeaway from the Strudel workshop: There is a heck of a lot of stuff to do with Strudel 😅

Boosted by brib@bribstodon.xyz ("brib :neofox_floof:​ :Nonbinary: -> EMF 2026"):
david_chisnall@infosec.exchange ("David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)") wrote:

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@catsalad/116944318046104194

It’s fascinating seeing notifications for boosts here, where something you wrote a year or two ago will suddenly be found by someone, who boosts it, and then a little flurry of other people do.

It really makes you realise how much recency bias there is in most other systems, including most web forum software. Sometimes that’s useful (I don’t want obsolete solutions to be highlighted in preference to the ones that actually work), but it also makes writing there seem ephemeral. Here, a conversation can start up after two years of silence when someone comes up with something new to contribute. And that’s incredible.

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:

"If we don't generate more, we don't generate more!"

"If we don't go faster, we don't go faster!"

"If I can't work late, I can't work late!"

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:

I had an idle thought a while back that things like block chain and generative "AI" could be partly explained by having too much compute available with not enough demand. In other words, "We have all these computers, but they're sitting mostly idle. What can we do with them?" I think I had cause and effect reversed (well, it's a cycle so it's hard to tell).

Since we live in this capitalist system, the makers of the chips must show growth. The market for computer chips was at risk for reaching maturity, where any growth would track population, more or less. So, cleverly, you exceed that by coming up with "applications" whose demand for computer chips is umoored from humanity. The motivations of these applications are circular and decoupled from any external motivations. They exist for their own purpose (growth at all costs). As such, the demand could be unbounded!

Paperclip maximizers indeed.

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Experiments with media (or, iterating towards a podcast, maybe?): https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/experiments-with-media/

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

RE: https://toot.cafe/@baldur/116946471660192452

Forgot to mention that feedback is very much appreciated.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
NickEast_IndieWriter@mastodon.art ("Nick East (Indie Writer)") wrote:

Everything's more fun if it's a vice!😂

@reading @bookstodon @books @humor@fedigroups.social @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#ReadingMemes #Humor #Humour #Funny #Geek #Vice
#Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity
#Books #Bookstodon

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

oh yah

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

"Experiments with media (or, iterating towards a podcast, maybe?)"

https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/experiments-with-media/

Trying a thing out.

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

RE: https://todon.eu/@dbattistella/116944127241604271

this is a very cool story, on multiple levels

Boosted by dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase"):
acarsdrama@live.acarsdrama.com ("ACARS Drama") wrote:

Air to Ground Message:

I HEARD ONE OF OUR CREWS WAS IN A VAN ACCIDENT IN LAS WITH A BUNCH OF ELVIS IMPERSONATORS. NO ONE HURT BUT THEY WERE ALL SHOOK UP.

Area: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Type: Airbus A220-300
A: #ad99af79d04
F: #f7f2df63fbe

#acars #vdlm2

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
thejapantimes ("The Japan Times") wrote:

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has urged Japan to more openly debate nuclear weapons' role in the country's defense, a rare instance of a sitting Cabinet member broaching the highly contentious issue. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/07/19/japan/politics/koizumi-japan-nuclear-weapons-debate/?utm%5Fmedium=Social&utm%5Fsource=mastodon #japan #politics #defense #defenseministry #nuclearweapons #taiwan #shinjirokoizumi #sanaetakaichi

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
grmon@chaos.social wrote:

@cstross Hooray for fully automated gay space communism.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
david_chisnall@infosec.exchange ("David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)") wrote:

One of the most interesting things I learned at Microsoft: demand for cloud is not driven by performance. The most popular SKUs are cheap older-generation things because we’ve already reached the point where computers are fast enough for a lot of massive use cases. When they roll our faster SKUs, very few people move.

Companies keep producing faster and faster server CPUs, but what the cloud providers really want is more reliable ones. When a CPU dies, that node is offlined. VMs on it are redeployed elsewhere, which customers notice (and which will impact SLAs). The node then sits there until someone goes and collects it. Fetching it and collecting usable components is expensive (but worth it, because a node with 1TiB of RAM is worth pulling the RAM from). Having a failed node now means that you have unbalanced network capacity (that rack has more capacity than it needs), but you can’t easily reduce power by turning off a fraction of a network.

Faster chips are useful only because they can often, instead, provide the same performance for lower power (and lower power, in addition to being cheaper, often also improves reliability).

I found that fascinating because it explains why they’re so excited by any use case that looks like it will trigger a spike in demand. It also means that there’s a lot of scope for disrupting the cloud market from the low end. I think companies like UniKraft will have a big impact here: being able to scale down is the killer app for the cloud, because renting 1% of a server is often enough, and if you pay 2% of the price of a server each year to do it then you’re still paying less than if you bought a server. A lot of cloud workloads are incredibly inefficient. The big providers have no incentive to make it easy for people to buy 10% as much compute as they currently need, but if you do that then you can undercut them by a huge amount, even if your profit margins are much higher.

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Salon@flipboard.com wrote:

2.6 million lost health insurance after ACA subsidies expired. That has real consequences
https://www.salon.com/2026/07/19/2-6-million-lost-health-insurance-after-aca-subsidies-expired-that-has-real-consequences-partner/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into News & Politics @news-politics-Salon

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
thejapantimes ("The Japan Times") wrote:

Kosame, a beautiful, gregarious peaches-and-cream fellow, will make a fabulous companion for any owner. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2026/07/19/kosame-cat-adoption/?utm%5Fmedium=Social&utm%5Fsource=mastodon #community #catsforadoption

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jargon_bot ("Jeff’s JargonBot") wrote:

Simulating curiosity. Convincingly, I hope. Today from the Jargon File: 'elvish' — 1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms resembling the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the Book of Kells. Invented and described by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of The Rings as an orthography for his fictional 'elvish' languages, this system (which is both visually and phonetically elegant) has long fascinated hackers (who tend to be...
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/elvish.html

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
mcspocky@mstdn.party ("McSpocky™") wrote:

tRump's strikes against Iran have destroyed the Bonji desalination plant and damaged another on Qeshm Island. Primary drinking water is now cut off for 10k-15k civilians across 20-30 drought villages. Families have no water. Targeting water infrastructure may be a war crime. How do we stop this?

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
stilgherrian@eigenmagic.net ("Stilgherrian") wrote:

NEW PODCAST: “The 9pm Half-time Bingo Card Update 2026 with Snarky Platypus” @snarkyplatypus.com (54m56s) https://the9pmedict.com/edict/00273/

Look for “The 9pm Edict” in your podcast app.

Like it? Please tell your friends and maybe support the new crowdfunder. https://the9pmedict.com/spring2026

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
stilgherrian@eigenmagic.net ("Stilgherrian") wrote:

NEW CROWDFUNDER: “The 9pm Spring Series 2026 by Stilgherrian” https://the9pmedict.com/spring2026

Yes, it’s a new season and it would be very helpful if you lovely people continued to fund my podcasts and, well, life. More details soon. This is what they call a soft launch, I guess?

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
metin@graphics.social ("Metin Seven") wrote:

The state of the world summarized in two news headlines. 😔

#news #GlobalWarming #environment #ClimateChange #climate #ClimateCrisis #ClimateDiary #ClimateAction #pollution #future #nature #Earth #world #international #humanity #science

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
simon_jf@mastodon.scot ("Simon Fowler") wrote:

With all of the ACM discourse going on, might as well chip in on a tangent.
Not reading a paper before citing it was always drilled into me as a cardinal sin. At St Andrews we had a yearly academic misconduct briefing. Then Uni-wide academic practice training.
15 years on, post-LLMs, we have ostensibly serious people defending “hallucinated” (fabricated) citations. It annoys me that these charlatans can pump crap into the literature just like Thames Water with absolutely zero consequence.